“The Taliban Is Not Resurgent In Afghanistan”
Marine Corps Times:
The Taliban is not “resurgent” in Afghanistan, said the U.S. general who commands the 42,000-member NATO force there, contradicting the Defense Department view, expressed most recently before Congress during two hearings Wednesday by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Mike Mullen.
In his written statements submitted for the record to the House and Senate armed services committees, Mullen said, “In Afghanistan, we are seeing a growing insurgency, increasing violence, and a burgeoning drug trade fueled by widespread poppy cultivation.”
At a Wednesday morning press conference at the Pentagon, Army Gen. Dan McNeill agreed with the second two points but took exception to Mullen’s claim of the insurgency’s growth.
“Admiral Mullen has his view,” said McNeill, commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force for the past year. “I’ve got mine, too.”
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Mullen is a number cruncher. Army Gen. Dan McNeill is a commander in the field. So who do I defer to? The bean counter or the bean? I put more stock in the people on the ground and their views, than the bean counter.
February 8th, 2008 at 8:17 amMy article today at American Thinker makes the point that NATO has been trying to tell us this and the media is burying it in favor of the “losing in Afghanistan” narrative. I also would take the word of the field commander over the intel guy.
But what the Admiral was really talking about was the ability of al Qaeda to reach into the west being on the rise. I think he drifted off message and let himself cast the same assessment on the Taliban. It is clear that al Qaeda is having success in getting cells into the west. However, the reason we know this is because they are being caught before they act. So even as al Qaeda may be improving the ability to infiltrate, they are losing the ability to pull it off successfully because our own intel has surged in response.
The net effect is an increased threat to the west, balanced by more success at detection and interdiction, and a Taliban and al Qaeda base in Afgh/Paki getting stomped by NATO/Musharraf/rival Taliban tribe (non al Qaeda aligned) alliance.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/02/media_spins_success_in_afghani.html
February 8th, 2008 at 10:11 am